An A R Rahman concert in London shows there may be life yet in geopolitical West
Photo: Rashmee Roshan Lall
No one outside the geopolitical West will be shedding any tears that it is going, going…gone.
For decades, the West and the rest played a mutually beneficial game. Its premise was the construction of an international architecture of rules and institutions. The system was lauded as equal-opportunity, egalitarian and equitable even though everyone knew it was basically run by the US and European, the countries that have dominated the world for much of the past 400 years. Even so, there was reason to keep the system going. It often delivered for the rest, just as well as for the West.
This remains true.
It was apparent at a London concert just days ago, which honored A R Rahman as he returned to his alma mater, the Trinity Laban school of music as its honorary president. The institution’s desire to enshrine diversity, equity and inclusion seemed more than the kind of woke word salad that Donald Trump is said to have despatched, along with USAID, to the woodchipper.
It really did seem to extend opportunity – to magick new worlds from chords across east and west.
Rahman was present as some of his music was performed by Trinity students on a night focussed on sounds from South Asia. When the chamber choir reprised Partition in a moving classical and contemporary performance that united western and eastern traditions, it sounded like it might be the anthem of tomorrow.
A mellifluous line under real war and culture wars.
